It was “to climax all these manifestations of Our love of the great Mother of God” that Pope PiusXII wrote his encyclical on the queenship, Ad Caeli Reginam, October 11, 1954, and therein declared a new liturgical feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Queen.
Consecration to The Immaculate Heart
Previous to the encyclical of October 11, 1954, the most significant statements of Pope Pius XII about Our Lady’s queenship were connected with his consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This great event took place in 1942 at the close of a radio address to Fatima. And it was at the solemn crowning of the miraculous image of Our Lady at Fatima in 1946 that the pope sent the radio message that he has often recalled as his “message of Mary’s royal dignity.”
On October 31, 1942, the Holy Father, not only as Head of the Church, but “in the role of representative of the human race which Christ redeemed” read the prayer of consecration: As the Church and the entire human race were consecrated to the heart of thy Jesus that through hope in him he might become for all the sign and pledge of victory and salvation, so we in like manner consecrate ourselves forever to thee and to thy Immaculate Heart, O Mother and Queen of the world, so that thy love and protection may hasten the triumph of God’s kingdom.
Excerpts from Ad Caeli Reginam:
- Certainly, in the full and strict meaning of the term, only Jesus Christ, the God-Man, is King; but Mary, too, as Mother of the divine Christ, as His associate in the redemption, in his struggle with His enemies and His final victory over them, has a share, though in a limited and analogous way, in His royal dignity. For from her union with Christ she attains a radiant eminence transcending that of any other creature; from her union with Christ she receives the royal right to dispose of the treasures of the Divine Redeemer’s Kingdom; from her union with Christ finally is derived the inexhaustible efficacy of her maternal intercession before the Son and His Father.
- Hence it cannot be doubted that Mary most Holy is far above all other creatures in dignity, and after her Son possesses primacy over all. “You have surpassed every creature,” sings St. Sophronius. “What can be more sublime than your joy, O Virgin Mother? What more noble than this grace, which you alone have received from God”? To this St. Germanus adds: “Your honor and dignity surpass the whole of creation; your greatness places you above the angels.” And St. John Damascene goes so far as to say: “Limitless is the difference between God’s servants and His Mother.”
- In order to understand better this sublime dignity of the Mother of God over all creatures let us recall that the holy Mother of God was, at the very moment of her Immaculate Conception, so filled with grace as to surpass the grace of all the Saints. Wherefore, as Our Predecessor of happy memory, Pius IX wrote, God “showered her with heavenly gifts and graces from the treasury of His divinity so far beyond what He gave to all the angels and saints that she was ever free from the least stain of sin; she is so beautiful and perfect, and possesses such fullness of innocence and holiness, that under God a greater could not be dreamed, and only God can comprehend the marvel.”
- Besides, the Blessed Virgin possessed, after Christ, not only the highest degree of excellence and perfection, but also a share in that influence by which He, her Son and our Redeemer, is rightly said to reign over the minds and wills of men. For if through His Humanity the divine Word performs miracles and gives graces, if He uses His Sacraments and Saints as instruments for the salvation of men, why should He not make use of the role and work of His most holy Mother in imparting to us the fruits of redemption? “With a heart that is truly a mother’s,” to quote again Our Predecessor of immortal memory, Pius IX, “does she approach the problem of our salvation, and is solicitous for the whole human race; made Queen of heaven and earth by the Lord, exalted above all choirs of angels and saints, and standing at the right hand of her only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, she intercedes powerfully for us with a mother’s prayers, obtains what she seeks, and cannot be refused.”[56] On this point another of Our Predecessors of happy memory, Leo XIII, has said that an “almost immeasurable” power has been given Mary in the distribution of graces; St. Pius X adds that she fills this office “as by the right of a mother.
- Let all Christians, therefore, glory in being subjects of the Virgin Mother of God, who, while wielding royal power, is on fire with a mother’s love.
48. Let all, therefore, try to approach with greater trust the throne of grace and mercy of our Queen and Mother, and beg for strength in adversity, light in darkness, consolation in sorrow; above all let them strive to free themselves from the slavery of sin and offer an unceasing homage, filled with filial loyalty, to their Queenly Mother. Let her churches be thronged by the faithful, her feast-days honored; may the beads of the Rosary be in the hands of all; may Christians gather, in small numbers and large, to sing her praises in churches, in homes, in hospitals, in prisons. May Mary’s name be held in highest reverence, a name sweeter than honey and more precious than jewels; may none utter blasphemous words, the sign of a defiled soul, against that name graced with such dignity and revered for its motherly goodness; let no one be so bold as to speak a syllable which lacks the respect due to her name.
Given at Rome, from St. Peter’s, on the feast of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.